


The Things We Sacrifice

by Ciwu



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Codependency, Gen, Severe Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 04:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6940081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciwu/pseuds/Ciwu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: During their attempted escape from Whitestone, Cassandra de Rolo was shot down by arrows.  In this world, her brother stopped and went back for her, resulting in both of them being recaptured by the Briarwoods.</p><p>You know.  Because what Percy's backstory really needed was <em>more</em> angst and trauma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things We Sacrifice

Five months after the Briarwoods' hostile takeover of Whitestone, Lord Briarwood kills Dr. Ripley. He does it right in front of Percy too, taking off her head with one clean swing of his onyx greatsword. Then he kicks her body into the fireplace and Percy has never felt so pathetically grateful to anyone in his entire life.

She just wouldn't stop _touching_ him.

After Percy and Cassandra's escape attempt went horribly wrong, the Briarwoods took a keener interest in them and sent them back to their own rooms in the castle rather than the dungeons. Percy doesn't remember much of the first month. They were both full of arrows so somebody must have healed them but he doesn't know who and he doesn't know why. Surely whatever it was the Briarwoods wanted in Whitestone didn't need two de Rolos? Did it even need one? 

But Percy realizes swiftly that he and Cassandra are very easy to control by simple virtue of the others presence.

Be good, or we'll kill your sister. 

Be good, or we'll kill your brother.

Neither was ever the others favorite sibling, but they are frightened children and they only have each other left. They are very, _very_ good.

There's no need to torture them into obedience and hurting one would only make the other obstinate, so while the two are still prisoners in their own home, Percy and Cassandra are both acutely aware of how much worse it could be. They are kept in separate rooms and there are always guards around them, but they are both alive and that's a start.

~

Four months after the takeover, the fear has receded somewhat into restlessness. Percy's never gone this long without doing something. He'd read every book in the library even before the takeover and now he's read them all twice. He's agitated and his fingers twitch for something to do. The Briarwoods notice, like they always do. There's nothing they don't see.

After breakfast one morning, Lady Briarwood catches his arm and ignores the way he flinches at her touch. She links her arm with his and leads him to his own workshop that he has been barred from since the takeover. She tells him that they are working on something he could help with and doesn't he want to be a good boy for her and assist them?

No.

“Yes.”

His workshop has been transformed from a tinkering set up and forge into an alchemist's laboratory. Percy has had only a passing interest in alchemy in the past but he's going stir crazy and he'll take what he can get.

Then he finds out that he has to work with Ripley.

At first he thinks he'll be able to grit his teeth and ignore her but he can't, oh gods, he _can't_. He flinches at every movement she makes and shivers when she speaks to him and he jerks away from her when she gets too close. It was never as though he had forgotten his time in the dungeon under her ministrations, but all of a sudden it's at the forefront of his mind. 

Worst of all, it's obvious that she knows it. Her smiles are cruel and she's always closer to him than she needs to be, reaching out for him just to see him jump. She even talks about the time she spent torturing him with a sort of wistfulness that gives him nightmares almost as much as the actual torture did. He knows all too well how much she enjoyed taking him apart and listening to him scream.

It's only a few weeks into the endeavor when Cassandra finds him in the library, huddled in a corner. He hasn't slept or eaten in days and for as much as he's tried to be strong for her through all this, it only takes her crawling into his arms for him to break down sobbing on her shoulder. She holds him tightly until he falls asleep wrapped around her.

He doesn't know what Cassandra said to Lord Briarwood. She must have convinced him of something or made some sort of bargain, though he doesn't know what she could possibly have to bargain with. Whatever she did, it's the very next evening when Percy is finishing another exhausting day of trying not to scream in Ripley's presence when Lord Briarwood walks into the workshop without a word and take's Ripley's head off her shoulders.

Percy stares at Sylas Briarwood, the man who murdered every member of his family save one, and for a moment Percy loves him so fiercely that it hurts.

Then the moment passes and Percy remembers. The adoration fades but the gratefulness remains, and he hates himself for it. 

Later, Delilah will coo at him that she didn't realize working with Ripley upset him and he only ever had to say something, darling. When he lies in bed, he wonders if it might even be true. If it is, it's only because they didn't need Ripley when they had Percy and he was far easier to keep a leash on than she was. But when he goes back to the workshop, he works better and harder than he ever has, and he tells himself that it's just because he has to make up for Ripley's loss and not because he is so very, very thankful.

~

Nine months into the takeover, there is a rebellion. It's short lived and poorly done. Percy doesn't even find out it happened until after it's already been put down. Cassandra seems grim faced when Kerrion Stonefell reports it at breakfast, but her gaze softens when she looks over at Percy. Percy is far from stupid and he knows she did something, but she isn't one of the many bodies Kerrion says they strung up from the Sun Tree so he isn't going to say a word.

The guards let her into his room that night and they curl together on his bed. This time it's her turn to cry in his arms as she confesses that she traded the people of Whitestone for her brother's safety.

“They had me slip notes to Keeper Yennin,” she whispers with her face pressed into his chest. “The Briarwoods left him alive to keep the people in line but they knew he'd support a rebellion if one started. Yennin passed the notes to Archibald and the Briarwoods let me me sneak out of the castle to meet with him.”

Percy hadn't even known Archie was still alive. He wraps his arms around her and combs his fingers through her hair. His sleep shirt is wet with her tears but Percy is too stunned to feel anything himself.

“I saw all of them. I knew their names, I knew where they met, I knew what their plan was. I don't think it would have worked but maybe, Percy, maybe it could have. And instead I told Sylas all of it.”

Percy doesn't want to ask, won't ask, can't ask – but he doesn't have to. Cassandra looks up at him suddenly. Though her face is still streaked with tears, her gaze has hardened into ferocity and she looks him in the eye. She looks so much like their mother that it hurts his heart.

“I did it for _you_ , Percy,” she says, and it's like all the air has been sucked out of his lungs. “I didn't do it for them, I did it because Ripley was hurting you.”

Even now, the name makes him shiver and she clutches his damp shirt in her fists when she feels it.

“I made a deal with Sylas. I told him I'd do whatever he wanted if he just made Ripley stop hurting you. I did it for you and I'd do it again because she was killing you, Percy.” Her voice turns pleading, begging him to understand. “She was killing you and I can't lose you. You're all I have left.”

Something in his chest unclenches and the words come spilling out uncontrollably, “Cassandra, Cassandra,” he murmurs, “you're all _I_ have left. What do you think I've been doing, turning out barrel after barrel of acid? That's the price I pay for your safety and it's worth it, Cassandra – you're worth it.” 

Cassandra's eyes drop back to his chest but he cups her cheek and forces her to meet his gaze. “The Briarwoods will get what they want anyway, that's what they do. They'd get the acid without me and they'd have crushed the rebellion without you. If anything, you probably saved lives. They got rid of the rebels fast and efficiently. If it had been a drawn out siege, we could have lost half of Whitestone and they'd have killed anyone they even suspected of being part of it rather than knowing exactly who to take out.”

Cassandra is quiet for a long moment before she says, “They didn't kill everyone I told them about. Just the strong ones. The smart ones. And they didn't kill Archie.”

Percy kisses her forehead. “You see? It's all for the best. For everyone.” 

Both of them pretend that it doesn't sound like an awful lie.

After that, they're given full run of the castle outside of the catacombs. There are still guards all over the castle but they no longer bother to follow the de Rolo siblings around and neither of them are forced to stay in their rooms in the evening. Their hair has become peppered with white around their temples and they eye each other and themselves in the mirror curiously, but there's nothing to be done about it so they let it go.

They have breakfast with Delilah in the mornings and dinner with Sylas in the evenings. Percy stays in his workshop all day, quietly producing acids and drawing up plans for how to make it all the more quickly. Cassandra disappears often and Percy knows she's still sending and receiving messages from the surviving rebels but he doesn't know if she's actually meeting with them. He hopes she isn't. They're _rebels_ , they're violent by definition, and he worries they'll kill her if they find out what she's done.

Percy isn't sure when he realized that he'd let every last person in Whitestone die if it meant keeping Cassandra safe. He doesn't know what kind of person that makes him, but he's never pretended to be a hero. He's just a scientist and a third child who was never expected to be in charge of anything. In what world could he have ever fought back?

~

A year and a half after the takeover, Percy walks into his workshop to find a boy sitting in it looking terrified. He doesn't recognize the boy but he looks vaguely familiar. Someone from before the Briarwoods, perhaps? 

“Ah?”

The boy jerks up from the chair he was sitting on and bows deeply and repeatedly. Percy has no idea what's going on.

“Lord de Rolo,” the boy starts, and Percy has to clench his jaw because that's his father's title and Percy isn't a Lord of Whitestone any more than this boy is. “My – my name is Desmond and I – my father was a messenger for your family – though I've never – uh, anyway the Lord Briarwood told me to stay in here and make myself of – of use to you, sir?”

Percy's increasing confusion must show on his face because Desmond hastens to clarify. “I worked for the uh, the count. Count Tylieri. He was cruel and – ” Desmond gulps and his eyes dart around as though someone is going to leap out of the shadows to punish him for his words. “Well, he was heavy with the lash when it came to his servants, my lord.”

Was? Tylieri isn't –

“The Lord Briarwood was at the Count's manor a few nights back. His Lordship saw the Count beating me for slouching and he – he just – ” Desmond makes a jerking motion with his thumb across his throat and since he's obviously not dead himself, he must mean that Sylas killed Tylieri. “Then his Lordship strung the Count up on the Sun Tree and had me taken to a temple. And he – and he told the Keeper to contact him when my back was healed because he had a job in the castle for me. The Count was hanging from the Sun Tree for four days before they cut him down.”

Desmond seems equal parts awed and deathly afraid. Percy can't say he blames him. He also isn't sure he can tell the kid that Tylieri was in the castle just last night. Which isn't to say he doesn't believe Desmond. On the contrary, killing Tylieri sounds exactly like Sylas. It's just that Tylieri still being around also sounds exactly like something Sylas and Delilah would do. 

Many things in Whitestone don't stay as dead as they ought to anymore, and there's no reason to upset him.

“So Sylas told you that you were to aide me?”

Desmond nods furiously.

“Can you read?”

Desmond winces. “Er, a little, my Lord? I can read signs a bit. I was the Count's carriage driver when he went out of town.”

Great. Desmond's shaping up to be a fine help in the workshop. Why did Sylas think Percy needed help anyway? He makes the same acid day in and day out. The only thing he's working on is drawing up plans for a larger distillery that could produce the acid faster and he's been intentionally slow on that since making himself obsolete seems like a bad idea for his long term survival.

Still, Percy can't help the small smile that curls at the edge of his mouth. He hasn't had someone new to speak with for some time and while Desmond may be only a servant boy, he's probably never committed murder. Percy has precious few conversation partners who aren't murderers.

How novel.

(“What would you do if I told you I was going to kill Desmond?” Sylas asks amiably over dinner some weeks later. Sylas never eats, but he seems to enjoy spending time with them every night as though they were his children.

Percy and Cassandra both stare at him in confusion.

“Nothing,” Percy says honestly, and Cassandra doesn't even bother to answer beyond a withering look. 

Sylas gives them a razor sharp smile and Desmond is in the workshop the next morning, unharmed and none the wiser. Percy doesn't worry about it because if Sylas is going to kill Desmond then there's nothing he can do about it anyway, and it's not worth being upset over.)

~

Sylas and Delilah leave for a short trip to Emon to discuss plans they don't intend to follow through on with a government they don't respect, and they leave the de Rolo siblings behind. Anders is nominally in charge of the castle in their absence, but in practice even Sylas and Delilah don't actually expect Percy and Cassandra to obey him.

Percy knows that Anders betrayed their family under orders from the Briarwoods, but somehow he hates Anders so much more than he hates them. Maybe it's because he adored Anders once, as the man who taught him to read and write. Maybe it's how utterly unrepentant Anders is about the whole thing, never showing a single sign of regret that he destroyed a family that trusted him so much. Or maybe it's just the way Anders seems to _leer_ at Cassandra when he thinks they don't see him. 

The Briarwoods often touch Percy and Cassandra in bizarre parodies of familial affection and intimacy, but Percy knows that Delilah and Sylas don't have eyes for anyone but each other. The way Anders looks at Cassandra seems more... purposeful. Like he's just waiting for an opportunity.

It takes less than a day after the Briarwoods leave for Percy to kill him.

Nobody actually checks up on what Percy makes in his workshop anymore and the Briarwoods were only too happy to supply him with alchemy books if it meant getting what they wanted that much faster. It's not a question of _if_ he can make poison, it's a question of what kind he wants to make. 

As much as Percy would dearly love to see Anders suffer, the longer it takes for the poison to kill him, the more opportunity he has to take an antidote so Percy brews up something that works hard and fast. Then it's just a matter of slipping into the kitchen to utilize it. The kitchen “staff” only consists of two people these days and they work in shifts so there's only one chronically busy person to avoid, which is easy enough in a kitchen that was meant to fit half a dozen.

Anders always eats in his study so there's no worry that the guards will see him drop dead in the dining hall. Percy just poisons the soup (with the Briarwoods out, they aren't making anything but the basics), tells Cassandra not to eat it, then waits ten minutes after Anders has been served to walk into the study and kick the slumped body into the fireplace like Sylas had done to Ripley so long ago.

It's not that Percy thinks he'll get away with it. There's nothing the Briarwoods don't know. But Percy hasn't forgotten that Cassandra was brave enough to get rid of Ripley for him, and he won't do any less for her.

As it turns out, Percy vastly underestimates the stupidity of the guards. As Percy understands it, one of them went into the kitchen to steal some soup for himself and wound up dead, so the other guards killed both members of the kitchen staff, and none of them at any point wondered where in the world two press-ganged peasants would be able to acquire such a brutal poison and then opt to use it on someone other than the Briarwoods themselves.

Cassandra is relieved. Desmond is horrified. Sylas and Delilah think the whole thing is _hilarious_.

They get the story from the guards when they return from Emon and Sylas barely keeps a straight face when he claps one of the guards on the shoulder and tells him to go find new cooks for the kitchen. As soon as they're gone, Sylas grins at Percy, huge and sharp, and says “You know that wouldn't have worked on us, don't you, boy?”

Percy responds mildly, “I didn't use it on you, did I?”

Delilah just laughs at him.

A new kitchen staff is dragged to the castle and a guard is posted in the kitchen to watch over them. There is no guard posted in or outside of Percy's workshop, nor any new restrictions placed on Percy's alchemy ingredients. At breakfast a few days later, Delilah gifts Cassandra with a very nice rapier and tells her to use it to keep the boys away. It sounds so much like something their mother would say that it makes Percy dizzy and he has to grip the edge of the table to stabilize himself. Cassandra is too pleased with the weapon to notice.

Desmond spends the better part of a week concerned that any of them could have been killed by the poisoner because, gods bless him, Desmond isn't very smart. At no point did Desmond notice Percy brewing a poison even though Percy did it right in front of him. Percy may recommend him as the carriage driver the next time the Briarwoods have to go somewhere because he's more in the way than anything else in the workshop. It's not that Percy doesn't like him, it's just that he doesn't need him and Percy has become accustomed to only holding on to the things he absolutely needs. 

The only thing that Percy needs is Cassandra – everything else, every _one_ else, is expendable.

~

Percy and Cassandra know that the acid is being used to clear away the white stone their town is named after, and they know that there is something under the castle that the Briarwoods want. They don't know what it is or why they want it, but they know that it's taking a damned long time to get to. 

Whitestone is dying around them and Percy suspects that by the time the Briarwoods get what they want, there won't be much of a town left. Cassandra tells him that the Sun Tree is dead and the crops are weak and sickly. There are a lot of empty houses in Whitestone and sometimes people just disappear over night.

Percy can certainly confirm the last part because he sees people being dragged into the dungeons on occasion. He isn't even forbidden to enter the dungeons but every time he starts to investigate, he sees the door and remembers Ripley's hands on him and _he cannot, he just can't_ \- he finds somewhere else to be. No one ever comes back out of the dungeons.

Years pass and Percy tracks the time not with days but with all the things he becomes accustomed to that would have once horrified him: 

Delilah places a hand on the small of his back and his skin doesn't crawl. 

Undead giants appear in the streets of Whitestone on an endless patrol he can see from his workshop window and he just wrinkles his nose with distaste. 

A guard is caught stealing and Sylas snaps his neck like a twig, and Percy is mostly just surprised that his death was that quick. He steps over the body since Sylas left it in the middle of the damn hallway as a warning to the other guards and he just wants to go back to his room. 

Cassandra comes back to the castle one day with blood all over her and Percy helps her clean it off, concerned only with whether or not the blood is hers. Some of it is and he carefully dresses the small wounds and he does not ask where the rest of the blood came from.

Both of their hair becomes more and more streaked with white.

~

There are spies in Whitestone, Cassandra tells him, probably from Emon. Years ago this might have sent a spark of hope through Percy. Now it just means that he knows who Sylas is going to be dining on for the rest of the week. Because if Cassandra knows then the Briarwoods know, and that's pretty much the end of it, isn't it? 

Still, it's interesting that Emon even thought to send spies. The last Percy heard, Uriel was quite interested in the bridge plans and hadn't noticed that the Briarwoods were more interested in talking about it than following through on it. It's possible that someone on Uriel's council is less of an idiot, but they clearly don't know what they're up against in Whitestone. None of them even get close to the castle unless they're following Delilah and Sylas like lost puppies. All of them disappear into the dungeons and never come back up.

Delilah and Sylas start making plans for another trip to Emon, not because they have any desire to be there but because missing spies are just as suspicious as anything those spies could actually report back. They need to determine who is sending the spies and handle him, but both of them are unhappy to be leaving Whitestone and Percy doesn't think it's because they've grown fond of the town. The amount of acid they've been using in the past few weeks has dropped sharply and he suspects they've got what they were looking for.

What that means for their occupation of Whitestone, Percy doesn't know. Will they stay to rule the town? Will they just leave it as a hollow shell of its former self? Will they destroy it? Percy's sure that whatever the answer is, it doesn't bode well for him or Cassandra. But he's always known the Briarwoods were going to kill him someday. His only concern is whether he can stop them from killing his sister.

The Briarwoods leave for Emon and apparently take Desmond with them. Sylas laughed at Percy when he asked them to, but he didn't say no and Desmond is gone when Percy wakes up so either they took him as a carriage driver or as a snack and Percy doesn't care anymore.

The Briarwoods have left no one in charge of the castle other than Percy and Cassandra themselves. There are a handful of guards, of course, but no one who outranks the de Rolo siblings in terms of value to the Briarwoods. Kerrion, Vedmeyer, and Tylieri are in charge of the town but Kerrion makes only one appearance at the castle for the entirety of the Briarwoods' absence and it's just to borrow one of the castle guards for something.

For as intelligent a man as Percy considers himself to be, it takes him two days to realize that there's nothing stopping him from just _leaving_. There's no one of any real power in the castle to stop him and the Briarwoods aren't due back for another week. He and Cassandra could be long gone by then.

Except they couldn't. There's nowhere to go. The closest city is Emon and the Briarwoods are already there making “friends” with Uriel. And how would they even get there? The road is dangerous even before considering that they'd eventually run into the Briarwoods on it, and the forest is downright deadly. Cassandra can wield her rapier with the best of them, but Percy is useless in a fight. It's been years since he held a sword and he was never good with them as a child anyway.

And it's been...

It's been almost five years since Percy left the castle. He's always been fair skinned but he's deathly pale these days. He can't remember what sunlight feels like on his skin. He can't remember what it feels like to walk on fresh grass. He can't remember how it feels to hold a fucking conversation with someone who wasn't complicit in the murder of his family. 

He can't remember what sort of person he was before he was this.

What was it like to have priorities in life that weren't limited to keeping himself and Cassandra alive?

They didn't leave anyone to keep an eye on Percy and Cassandra because there was no point. Percy is a ghost in his own home, but he has nothing but this. 

He doesn't bring up leaving to Cassandra and she never mentions it to him. He wonders if she feels the same way – if Cassandra too doesn't know who she is outside of a prisoner to her family's murderers.

It doesn't matter, because the Briarwoods return much earlier than expected via teleportation. Desmond isn't with them and they both look slightly worse for wear but not especially injured. Sylas claps Percy on the shoulder as he walks by but doesn't say anything so Percy figures it isn't something they're inclined to discuss with him. They tell one of the guards to go find Kerrion, then disappear into the master bedroom and that's the last he sees of them that night.

Percy and Cassandra both have their curiosity but they aren't fool enough to try and spy on the Briarwoods so they retire to their rooms with no further interest.

~

Over the next week, new bodies find their way to the Sun Tree's branches. One of them, Cassandra tells him with amusement, is a bear. The next day, with considerably less amusement, she tells him that two of them are children. 

It must be a warning then, to someone in particular rather than just a general air of 'this is what happens when you commit crimes against the Briarwoods'. Obviously whatever happened in Emon has left the Briarwoods expecting visitors. Percy doesn't have any higher hopes for them than he did for the spies.

Kerrion dies first, because of course he does, he's on the front lines isn't he? That's his job. Percy doesn't care that Kerrion is dead but neither is he particularly impressed. Then Tylieri dies in the same night that Vedmeyer's house burns down and that's – that's more impressive, he'll admit. It must be a larger group to accomplish both at once. Vedmeyer isn't dead but he is singed and _very_ displeased. He takes to patrolling the castle, looking for a fight with anyone that crosses his path, and the normally lazy castle guards learn very quickly to be on their best behavior whenever he storms through.

The Briarwoods don't seem concerned but in all the years that Percy has known them, Sylas and Delilah have never seemed concerned about anything at all.

Percy is doing... absolutely nothing. The Briarwoods have more acid than they'll ever need and have no further projects for him so he spends most of his time with Cassandra while she writes notes to the rebels and tries to determine what's going on. 

He knows, through Cassandra, that the native Whitestone rebels aren't responsible for this. They in fact have no idea what's going on and apparently think that Cassandra somehow called in help. How they think she did that, neither of them know, nor why they think she was capable of doing that and hadn't done it before. The rebels have the most bizarre faith in Cassandra given that over the course of the four years she's been working with them, she has yet to hand them any real victory. Percy thinks they're fucking idiots and he hasn't been proven wrong yet.

Then Percy is awoken in the early morning by being dragged out of bed by Vedmeyer who explains himself only with a snarl to “play along”. He hauls Percy into the main foyer (there's no guards, where are the rest of the guards?), kicks the back of his knees to force him into a kneel, and stands behind Percy with one hand holding him the by the hair and the other pressing his greatsword against Percy's throat, a twitch away ripping him open.

If “play along” means Percy is supposed to be scared then mission fucking accomplished because Percy is terrified. He can't move in Vedmeyer's iron grip and there's a sword blade held against his neck so tightly that he can feel it draw blood when he swallows. Percy has no idea how long they wait there (or what they're waiting _for_ ) with Vedmeyer breathing harshly behind him and staring fixedly at the front door. 

It feels like hours but objectively it can't be more than twenty minutes before he hears somebody from _behind_ them say “Jenga” and then something hits Vedmeyer hard enough in the back that he stumbles forward, pushing Percy's head forward and down. He sees the spray of blood against the floor and is momentarily confused before the howling agony reaches his brain. 

Percy's always known there's no end game for him. He was never going to leave Whitestone alive. Either the Briarwoods were going to kill him or there would be a miraculously successful rebellion and he'd be executed as a traitor. But for the first time he realizes that there's a difference between knowing he's going to die and accepting it. When someone hits the ground next to him and fumbles a potion into his hands, he's only too happy to try and take it.

The potion barely helps – it slows the bleeding but it's too hard to swallow anything down with his throat ripped open. Whoever is trying to help him yells something but Percy feels it more than he actually hears it, too busy choking on the potion and his own blood.

And then there are arms wrapping around him from behind and one small hand lifting his chin gently so that the other could touch his ripped throat. And it's warm, so very, very warm. He hadn't realized how cold he was – how cold he always was – until the warmth seeped into his bones from the body pressed against his back.

“It's okay, it's okay,” a soothing voice behind him says, and it isn't really but there's a healing spell knitting his throat back together and he hasn't been this warm since the last time he hugged his mother.

When he can breathe again, he spits the blood out of his mouth and turns to find a tiny gnome with plate armor and a holy symbol around her neck, obviously a cleric. Beyond her, there's a battle raging with Vedmeyer squaring off against another goliath, a half elf, and a second gnome that Vedmeyer seems to really have it in for. Percy has a thousand questions but only one that matters.

“Where's my sister?”

The cleric pats his shoulder with one bloody hand (his blood, that's his blood on her hands, his shirt, the floor –) and says, “She's with the rest of our group. We split up to try and find you when you weren't in your room.”

Ah, of course. They're playing this game again. Cassandra with her silver tongue and tragic story insinuates herself among the rebels and leads them straight into Sylas' claws.

 _“Play along,”_ Vedmeyer had told him.

Percy was bait. Percy was evidence that the de Rolo siblings were mistreated by the Briarwoods and had no cause for loyalty to them. As though the fact that the Briarwoods had murdered the entire de Rolo family wasn't evidence enough.

...Wasn't it?

Wouldn't that alone be enough? Shouldn't that be...?

Percy watches the half elf ram his daggers into Vedmeyer's side while the other goliath hits him with a hammer blow to the chest that visibly caves in his ribcage and sends him sprawling. Vedmeyer wheezes on the ground, trying to bring his sword up, before being pelted by half a dozen magic missiles from the gnome across the room. Then he's still.

Percy doesn't feel anything. No disappointment, no satisfaction, no sorrow, no joy, nothing.

“I'm Pike, by the way.”

Percy looks away from Vedmeyer's corpse to the cleric who healed him. She's smiling kindly at him, the way one might smile at a skittish colt.

“Percy,” he says after a beat.

“I know. Your sister told us about you.”

No, she didn't, but sure.

“We're a group called Vox Machina, from Emon. We were sent in to investigate due to some suspicious activity, but we weren't expecting this.”

Percy laughs roughly and it turns into a hacking cough partway through. 

Pike's three companions look up at the noise and the half elf moves to crouch in front of him. He eyes all the blood on the floor, the front of Percy's blood-soaked shirt, and Percy's healed neck. Then he says, “I'm sorry for hitting Vedmeyer into you. I was trying to get him to drop the sword. Are you alright?”

“I need to find my sister.”

The half elf's face turns instantly from concerned to sympathetic. “She's fine, she's with -”

Which is of course the exact moment when Cassandra barrels into the room, wild eyed and rapier in hand. She looks around frantically, eyes skipping over Vedmeyer's body, until she lands on Percy, who is still kneeling on the floor in a pool of his own blood. She takes one ragged breath before dropping her rapier and launching herself into his arms.

“Oh gods, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,” she murmurs into his ear, in between pressing kisses to the side of his head.

“I know, I know,” Percy murmurs back, closing his eyes and holding her tightly. He does not say _I'm alright_ or _we'll be alright_ , because unlike his sister, Percy has always been a terrible liar.

~

“He doesn't need to come,” Cassandra hisses at the group. “He's an alchemist, not a fighter. He doesn't even have a weapon.”

Percy has no desire to be in the catacombs. He hasn't been in them since he was a small child playing hide and seek with his siblings. He got in trouble for knocking over an urn and he's been banned from them ever since – by his parents and by the Briarwoods. For different reasons, obviously.

Unfortunately, Vox Machina isn't as stupid as past spies have been.

After brief introductions, the group made it clear that they intend to go into the catacombs, figure out what's going on beneath Whitestone, and kill the Briarwoods. Which is fine – if they want to get themselves killed by Sylas and Delilah, that's their business. But they aren't willing to just leave the de Rolo siblings in the castle. Or rather, they aren't willing to leave Percy, because Cassandra has to go with them to keep up appearances.

They're all standing in Percy's room now – because whatever it was he was doing, he wasn't doing it in bloodied sleep clothes – and arguing about just how much of a liability he's going to be to them.

“She's right, I really don't have any weapons.”

The male twin, Percy has already forgotten whether he's Vex or Vax, says, “I can give you a dagger.”

Grog reaches for the large bag at his waist and says, “I can give you a sword.”

Percy snorts. “And what am I going to do with either of those? I don't know how to fight.”

Scanlan cocks his head to the side. He's sitting on Percy's bed, his legs dangling over the sides and kicking absently. “I thought all the noble kiddies learned swordplay?”

“I was taught it,” Percy shrugs. “That doesn't mean I was good at it, and I'm out of practice besides. I haven't held a sword since I was fourteen.”

“Oh jeez,” Scanlan groans.

“You're no good with a sword either and we still take _you_ along,” Keyleth says to Scanlan.

“Excuse you,” Scanlan starts, offended.

The female twin (Vex? Maybe? It sounds more feminine but who knows with elves) intercedes before he can work himself up. “Scanlan can do magic. Can either of you do magic?”

“No,” Percy and Cassandra both say flatly.

“Great. So you have a rapier,” she points at Cassandra, “and you're useless,” she points at Percy.

“In a straight fight? Yes, that's exactly what we've been saying,” Percy snaps, pride stinging. “If you want someone poisoned, I'm your man, but unless you have a suggestion on how to get a vampire to ingest poison, I'm a bit unhelpful.”

The entire group does a double take at him and Cassandra sighs heavily.

“Look,” Pike says, “I know you don't want your brother to be in danger but he's in danger up here too, isn't he?” She turns to Percy and adds, “At least if you're with us we can protect you. If you're up here, you're alone. I'd hate to beat the Briarwoods, then come up here to find out the guards had killed you.”

Percy turns his head enough to catch his sister's eye and raises a brow at her. She shrugs at him in response.

The guards aren't really the issue. The guards are accustomed to Percy being there and have no cause to kill him normally, much less if he's out of the way in his room. It's the rebels who might kill him.

Percy turns back to the group. “Let's not be coy, shall we? You don't trust us, and that's fine. Reasonable even. You'd rather we were in front of you so we can't stab you in the back.”

Keyleth opens her mouth to protest but nobody else in the group looks even a little bit offended so Percy barrels onward.

“You want me in the catacombs with you? Fine. But you must realize that it is in Sylas' nature to turn people against each other.” The twins grimace. They must have already seen that in action then. Good. “The Briarwoods murdered our family and have kept us prisoner here for five years. Any knife in your back is courtesy of him, not us.”

That's the best he can do. He can't fight them, he doesn't have the ability. This is all he can do to protect Cassandra. Percy will no doubt end up dead in the catacombs, surrounded by the animated bones of his ancestors, but at least Cassandra might have a chance. If the Briarwoods win, she'll have no brother limiting her and she can escape. If Vox Machina wins, perhaps they'll take her betrayal as Sylas' mind control and leave her be.

They prepare to descend into the catacombs, Cassandra dismayed all the while. But it's worth it. It will be worth it if she lives. He won't die for nothing, but he'll always die for her.

(“So hey,” Grog says, smacking Percy's arm in a manner that probably isn't intended to be painful but definitely is, “what if like, somebody drank poison, right? And then the vampire bit them. Would the vampire get poisoned then?”

Percy is in the middle of gathering up the few healing potions he has in his workshop when what Grog asked actually hits him and it takes a moment to regain his mental footing. “Wha – no? How would – the digestive system and the circulatory system aren't connected closely enough to – are you offering to _drink poison_ on the off chance that Sylas bites you?”

“...No.” Grog says, looking thoroughly disappointed.)

~

The catacombs are chilly and damp at this time of year. Percy feels numb down to his bones, but he doesn't think it's because of the weather.

He's standing on the other side of a green glass wall looking in on his sister and Vox Machina and he wants to scream. He wants to, but he can't. Delilah's hand is on his shoulder and his mind is frantic but his body is frozen.

It's not the same as being under Sylas' control. He knows how that feels – the adoration and unwavering trust in him that it gives you. It's soft and gentle and sickly sweet. Delilah's control is ironclad and cold and confining. It is mindless obedience and in that sense, Percy actually prefers it. At least he knows he's being controlled. Delilah may be able to force him to do whatever she wants, but she can't force him to _want_ to do it in the way that Sylas can.

Behind him, he can hear Sylas speaking to the only member of Vox Machina not stuck in the trap. “Ah, we meet again. Vax'ildan, wasn't it, boy?”

“Yes, that's right.” Vax's voice sounds dreamy and distant, even though he can't be more than ten feet away from Percy.

What a pair the two of them make. Two brothers who are going to watch their sisters die.

“Percy.” His sister is on the other side of the glass. It's too clouded for him to see through it clearly, but he'd know her form anywhere. “Percy, it's alright. Stay safe and I'll see you soon. It's going to be alright, I promise.”

She's such a good liar. For a moment, he almost believes her.

“Come along, darling,” Delilah says. She loops her arm through his and turns him away from the glass. 

He can hear the acid pouring down from the distillery tanks as they leave. How much is in them? He hasn't been producing anything lately but they had such a stockpile of it. He can't remember how much is left but the answer is probably too much, too much.

Sylas walks in front, Vax trailing behind him. Delilah keeps her arm linked with his and pauses only to shut the door behind them as they leave.

He's so cold. He wishes Pike had never healed him, never flooded him with divine warmth. If she hadn't, he wouldn't know now just how cold he is and has been. If she hadn't – if he'd bled out on the floor in the foyer from a well meant attempt at rescue, then Cassandra would still be safe.

All this time, all the thousands of ways Cassandra could have died over the years and it's him. It's his fault. Not the Briarwoods, not the guards who hunted them down, not Ripley, not Anders, but him. It's Percival who is responsible for his sister's death. It's Percival who touched the stone and brought down the glass cage.

He wants to scream and howl and rage. He wants to he wants to wrap his hands around Delilah's throat and demand to know how she can so easily kill someone she spent five years having breakfast every morning with. Did she let Percy kill Anders because he simply didn't matter, rather than because she cared about Cassandra's well being? Did she give Cassandra the rapier already knowing that she was going to let her die?

Percy's mind rages, but his body walks placidly down the hallway with Delilah, arm in arm like a perfect gentleman.

 _You treated us like we were your children,_ Percy thinks furiously. _Was this always the plan, or were we just not good enough?_

He's so very, very cold.

~

Percy has never put much time into wondering just what it was the Briarwoods were looking for beneath Whitestone. He didn't care what they wanted and he couldn't fathom what could possibly be important enough to butcher a family over. If pressed though, he might have guessed a magical item of great power. Something small, buried and lost beneath the soil and rock. Some trinket of importance.

He's not expecting the ziggurat.

How could this possibly be underneath Whitestone? Ahead of him, Vax makes a noise of wonder and confusion because Sylas' control grants that privilege. Percy can't do anything but keep walking with Delilah.

They're ascending the steps when Percy catches the barest flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. He can't turn his head to look at it and he wouldn't even if he could because Delilah doesn't seem to have noticed it. It could be nothing. Percy's never had the best eyesight and gods know he's stressed out enough that he could be imagining things. It could be some creature that belongs to the Briarwoods, another undead monstrosity.

It could be Vox Machina. It could be Cassandra.

Vax cocks his head suddenly and raises a hand to an earring Percy hadn't noticed before. “Where are you?” he asks, voice still dazed.

Sylas pauses on the steps and turns to look at Vax. Delilah does not stop, however. Sylas steps to the side to let them pass and she and Percy continue up to the top of the ziggurat.

Beneath his feet, the ziggurat turns from solid white stone to the same green glass from the acid trap. His boots get little traction on the smooth glass but Delilah never lets him fall. At the top of the stairs, there are doors leading inside the last layer of the ziggurat. The doors are large and heavy looking but Delilah makes a gesture with her free hand and they begin to open.

“I know this is hard, darling, and I know you're angry.”

Percy says nothing. He can't. He just watches the doors grind open slowly.

Delilah's voice is soft and – not quite apologetic. Regretful, perhaps. “We all must make hard sacrifices, but I promise you that it's worth it in the end.”

The past five years of Percy and Cassandra's lives have been one long, brutal sacrifice for each other. What the fuck does Delilah know about _sacrifice_?

“You'll get her back,” Delilah says as the doors finally finish opening.

It was an acid trap. For as great a necromancer as Delilah is, even she needs a body to raise the dead.

Her voice is a strangely awed whisper when she says, “Our master can do the most marvelous things, Percival.”

...What master?

“He gave me my Sylas back, you know. He'll give us our Cassandra back.”

Our, our, _our_. Oh, he wants to kill her so badly.

A high whistle cuts through the air as magical missiles slam into Delilah from behind and she loses her balance on the slick glass, pitching forward. Percy whips around to try and protect her but it's thankfully pointless – as Percy has already discovered tonight, he has no ability to protect anyone. 

There's two distinct bellows from below them as Grog and Vex's bear charge up the steps towards Sylas. Vax draws his daggers but before Sylas can compel him to do something he'll regret for the rest of his life, Pike falls from the sky to land right on top of him. Small as she is, she's wearing full plate armor and it knocks the wind out of Vax, giving her a chance to grab his head with her hands glowing.

From a distance, Percy can see Vax go still. There's a long moment before he shakes Pike off – gently – and regains his footing enough to slam a knife into Sylas' side. Sylas swats him away with a snarl but then Grog is on him, warhammer ablaze and froth gathering at the corners of his mouth. Arrows streak out of the darkness into Sylas and his skin seems to sizzle where they hit him.

Delilah rises just in time for a bolt of lightning to streak down from above. It doesn't do much to her other than make her angry, but it's close enough to make all the hair on Percy's body stand on end. He glances up to see a giant eagle carrying Scanlan in one talon and Percy can guess that it used to be holding Pike as well. The eagle swoops low enough to drop Scanlan safely (though he doesn't quite manage a graceful landing) and then suddenly there are wings and eagle claws in Percy's face.

It's not great, if he's being honest, but at least it isn't the bear.

Huge eagle wings batter Percy's glasses off his face but it isn't especially painful. Assuming the eagle is Keyleth, she's obviously making an effort not to hurt him. Percy can't make any effort not to hurt her but also isn't particularly capable of doing so. Neither Vax nor Grog ended up giving him a weapon since he told them he'd be more likely to hurt himself with it than anything else. There's nothing Delilah's mind control can make him do other than shove ineffectually at Keyleth, whose talons are digging into his shoulders.

Then a wave of force hits his back and his vision goes black.

~

When Percy comes back to himself, he's on the ground and his ears are ringing. He can't see Keyleth anywhere, nor his glasses, but that's the problem with glasses, really. You need to be wearing them in order to find them. Maybe he should carry an extra pair. 

Percy might have a serious concussion.

He doesn't feel Delilah's iron grip on his mind anymore, so he takes the opportunity to throw up. It's more dry heaving than anything else and he eventually decides his time would be better spent lying on his back until the world stops spinning.

He can hear shouting but he can't pick out who it is. What even happened? The magic came from... He lolls his head to his left and sees Delilah, angrily flinging spells. They sail over Percy's prone body and he dizzily follows them with his eyes. Spells and arrows also keep passing by in the other direction but he can't work up the energy to turn his head.

What happened to Percy though? Keyleth flew into his face, he lost his glasses, then he was flung halfway across the upper platform, and now he's staring at Delilah as she gets further and further away from the doors of the – wait.

Wait. Is he seeing that right?

Percy squints to try and focus his vision and sure enough, the doors leading inside the ziggurat are closed. Percy's head is a little shaky but he definitely remembers standing there for an obnoxiously long time waiting for the doors to open. Why did she close them? Surely whatever it is she wants is in there. Is she protecting it?

“Percy! _Percy_!”

Somebody is yelling his name. Delilah is the closest person to him, almost standing over him now, but it isn't her. It's someone down the stairs. In his stupid, concussed brain, it makes more sense to roll onto his stomach and then turn his head towards the stairs (now on his left) rather than just, y'know, turning his head to the right. 

Down the stairs, he can see the battle raging against Sylas. He's holding the stairs handily – no one can get past him up to Delilah without contending with his greatsword. Scanlan, Keyleth, and Vex are on the next level down of the ziggurat, but have jumped off the stairs to get away from Sylas. The ziggurat's layers are large enough that without the stairs, climbing up them would be difficult even if they weren't covered in smooth green glass. Delilah shooting spells at them can't be helping any either, even if they are firing back as good as they get.

Sylas is losing though. As powerful as he is and as much as his wife is trying to back him up, there's just too many enemies for him to stop. Grog, Vax, Pike, and Vex's bear are all pushing him slowly backwards up the steps. And Cassandra is –

Cassandra. _Cassandra_.

“Cassandra,” he slurs and reaches an arm out for her weakly.

His sister is behind Grog and Vax, not even really fighting Sylas, which Percy is grateful for. She keeps trying to duck around the two but every time there's a gap for her to squeeze through, Vax moves to close it. He's intentionally keeping her out of the way of Sylas' blade, Percy realizes after watching him do it a few times. He's protecting Percy's sister, the same as he'd protect his own.

He's certainly doing a better job of it than Percy has been.

Sylas is looking more and more haggard and angry, and he's now been backed up enough that Delilah can step forward and touch his back. “It's too early, my dear but I'm afraid we'll have to go now,” she says.

“We won't get another chance,” Sylas agrees.

Arcane energy starts to form a door but just as suddenly as it appears, it disappears as Scanlan hollers, “Oh, I don't think so! That door is closed!”

Delilah staggers back from the force of the counterspell, nearly tripping over Percy.

“Hey Pike, shield up!” Keyleth yells. Pike lifts her shield unquestioningly and all of a sudden there is a burst of too bright light in the dark cavern. Percy has to squeeze his eyes shut, the light hurting his pounding head, but he can hear Sylas howl.

The howl cuts off abruptly and everything is silent. Then Delilah _screams_.

Sylas is gone and there's nothing in his place but ash. For a moment, no one moves. Then Scanlan turns to Pike and says, “That was amazing, baby!”

Delilah seizes upon his distraction and grabs Percy. He feels himself jerked upwards and he sees his sister lunge towards him, screaming his name.

This time, Scanlan isn't fast enough to stop the dimension door.

Percy was already disoriented enough without being magically teleported so when they land, he immediately topples over and cracks his face against the floor. _Again_.

The whole world sort of... fuzzes over.

He doesn't know where he is. He's on the floor and he doesn't know why. He can taste blood in his mouth. Is it his? It must be his, but why is he bleeding?

Someone is speaking but he can't hear the words. Hands lift him up and he can only barely get his feet under him. The hands half drag, half stumble him a short distance, but his limbs are heavy and every step feels like a mile.

Percy is dropped into a sitting position which he wouldn't be able to maintain but he's leaning against someone's legs. His head starts to drop towards his chest, but a hand in his hair pulls him back and brings him to rest against a robed thigh. The hand in his hair relaxes its grip, more of a gentle carding than an attempt to keep him upright now that he's in a stable position.

Someone is speaking again and even though it feels like he's underwater, he's at least able to determine that it's a woman's voice. Cassandra? No, older. The woman's voice is shaking and pleading but Percy still can't hear the words.

Her grip in his hair tightens again and holds him upright so she can lean down towards him. Even as she ducks closer into view, his vision is too blurred for him to tell who she is. She looks so familiar though. He must know her. Is it...?

“Mother?”

She releases her grip on him with a gasp and jerks away violently. There's a commotion above him, but he can't hold himself up and for the third time in as many minutes, his head hits the floor with a dull thud.

This time when Percy blacks out, he stays out.

~

He wakes slowly.

He's warm and he's in a soft bed. It's quiet except for the sound of breathing and it takes him a moment to realize it's not _his_ breathing. The warmth is from another body in his bed, pressed tight against his side. He doesn't startle though – he knows this particular warmth well.

Percy breathes softly to himself without opening his eyes, trying to piece together his memories of what happened. He remembers the acid trap, he remembers the ziggurat, and he remembers a fight, but after that everything gets hazy. He thinks he might have lost his glasses at some point, but he can't remember where or why. He does remember Sylas dying in a brilliant blaze of light.

Sylas Briarwood is dead, and Percy is still alive. More importantly, and Percy finally opens his eyes to confirm it, _Cassandra_ is still alive.

His sister is nestled into his side, nose buried in his neck and one arm thrown across his chest. She's asleep and he will not wake her. He doesn't feel any pressing need to move and across the room he can see a bear dozing in a patch of sunlight on the floor.

It's the sunlight that convinces him it's over more than anything. Whitestone hasn't seen a sunny day in the past five years. It's over. It's over and the de Rolo siblings are alive to see it.

Percy falls back asleep to the sound of his sister's breathing.

~

There are explanations later, when Pike checks in on them and Cassandra's movement wakes him. They tell him that they couldn't get through the doors of the ziggurat, so Vax scaled the sides of it and found that the top level had no roof. They tell him that Lady Briarwood was performing a ritual dedicated to Vecna and that she had Percy by the hair, knife in her hand to offer him up. They tell him that something happened and she suddenly dropped him, leaping away like she'd been burned. They tell him that at that point, all of them jumped down to kill her.

Percy has no memory of any of it and he can't fathom what could have caused Delilah to not kill him when she had him at her mercy. In the end, it doesn't matter. She's dead, and he isn't.

Cassandra hasn't smiled so much in years and it warms Percy's heart every time he sees it. She tells him that the people of Whitestone are preparing a massive celebration which will coincide with the Winter's Crest festival they've missed for the past five years. He's glad, but he doesn't intend to see it.

Percy approaches his sister in the library a week before Winter's Crest and tells her, “I can't stay in Whitestone.”

She turns to him in surprise but perhaps not as much surprise as he thought she'd react with.

“Or, I should say, I don't _want_ to stay in Whitestone. There's a difference, I know.”

“There is,” she agrees. “Where would you like to go?”

Percy has no particular destination in mind. Vasselheim or Ahn'karel or anywhere in between. He'd hop in a fishing boat and trawl the shoreline as long as it meant not being in Whitestone. “Anywhere but Wildmount.”

Cassandra shrugs, “We'll get a map out and throw a knife at it then. I suppose it doesn't matter where we go. When do you want to leave?”

And just like that, it's as though the last weight has been lifted off his chest. She's going with him. He couldn't have asked, would never have asked, but she didn't need him to. He exhales slowly and says, “Soon, but we can stay for the celebration if you'd like.”

She smiles at him knowingly and he loves her so much it hurts. “I think I can stand to miss it. Besides, if we leave now, maybe we can make it to Emon in time for their festival and it'll probably be much bigger than ours. What do you think? A traveling alchemist and his bodyguard? I think we can keep ourselves afloat.”

Percy laughs softly. He has no interest in Emon but if that's where Cassandra wants to go then they'll stop in on their way to other things. “I think we can too. I don't know about full time alchemist though. I think there's some other projects I'd like to try my hand at.”

She hums in agreement, then starts rifling through the books to find an atlas she can throw a knife at. Percy doesn't think he's ever felt happier.

He still doesn't know who he is outside of the last ghost of Whitestone Castle. But for the first time, he thinks he might like to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering how VM ended up in Whitestone without Percy to give them a good reason for it, Seeker Asum invited them to the feast because he was already suspicious of the Briarwoods and wanted more eyes on them. Vax cocked it up just like he did in canon and voila, away they go.
> 
> Pike is with them because she should have been in the first place. I still cannot believe they did almost an entire undead story arc without their cleric. I know why it happened that way but jesus christ, talk about bad luck.


End file.
